Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Mayor Williams State of the City Address Preview

Answering
questions Wednesday Mayor Steve Williams announced that the budget for the
fiscal year of 2017 would be $2 million less than the previous year fiscal budget.

Williams previewed
his State of the City address for Marshall Journalism reporters. Williams said,
“Everyone is getting cut across the board.” In regards to the deficit he also
said, “Some of it is a reduction in revenues on one side, but then there are
costs that continue to go up.”

A reason for the
$2 million hole for the next fiscal year Williams said “The economy has slowed.”
Williams did say that what his administration will not do is raise fees to
offset the $2 million. He said, “We are going to be down $2 million off what we
have and were counting the user fee.” The mayor said his biggest worry is that
some expenses are going through the roof.

Williams reconfirmed
that the last thing he would ever consider is layoffs to any departments. He said,
“It would be a last resort if we ever find ourselves to layoffs.” He
additionally said, “I am not talking about layoffs with any of my department
heads right now.”

To start off the
State of the City address Williams said “We will talk about the progress we
have made, specifically the Huntington innovation project.” The environmental
protection agency has given Huntington $600,000 in grants to take care of areas
such as the Browns field area across from the football stadium. High speed
broadband is a part of the innovation project that the mayor is hoping for
businesses to use for international exchanges to better help growth economically
in the city.

The mayor cited
the $2 user fee hike as a way for the city to generate an additional $3
million. He said, “It will be used for road construction and capital
improvements around town.” More funds will be allocated this fiscal year for
road construction than last year. Outside of the additional officers and road
construction Williams said, “It’s a good possibility I would use it to drive
our broadband initiative.” Williams said, “It will cost about $26 million to
build a broadband network.”

The mayor’s State of the
city address will be Tuesday Feb. 16 at City Hall.